Ajith Nair

The innocuous transport of the aam aadmi has a tarnished image now. The mazdoor’s transport, a symbol of penury is now a weapon of terrorists. In fact its being exploited for its inherent characteristic, that of being Indian, hoi polloi and indistinguishable in any marketplace. The cyclist has always been a simple man, in films either the postman or a simpleton peon who carries the burden of a large family, struggling to do so. During the bad times, the cycle represents the vicious cycle that he is caught in, the good times the cycle represents wheels of progress. Mass produced and mass consumed, the cycle can even claim to be one of the biggest uniting symbols of the Indian mass, irrespective of culture and language. Even the names of the biggest cycle brands, Hero, Hercules, Atlas are quite a revelation about the burden that the cycle is meant to carry. Its earnestness is not lost to the aam aadmi, there is exponential relation of an ignition and acceleration. The equation is honest...

Its deja vu and the frequency is now alarming. Serial bomb blasts are now more frequent than Indian test defeats and in both cases, more often than not there is a foreign hand. As I had written in May 2007 ,the govt and related pillars seem to have perfected the reaction to a blast scenario. Its both amusing and saddening. All this happens so perilously close, it could be you next or the time after that. What seemed so distant when blast reports used to come from Israel, Iraq, Kabul or even Kashmir is suddenly upon us, staring us in the eye. The perpetrators also seem to be increasingly like you and me. Laptops, emails, for all you know he travels with you everyday and plots your death too. He went to the same school or the same kind of school, chased the same dreams and ate at the same wada pav stall. You might have brushed past him at the crowded marketplace or asked him the way to a particular address. He might have been part of that cricket team that you fought with many years ago ...

A bad foot meant that I was immobile and locked in one position this Monday. After flipping innumerable boring channels, I chanced upon one where all the action was. Lok Sabha tv, i knew this one existed, or atleast deserved to exist, just to showcase the tomfoolery of our elected representatives.I missed the PM speak, but then haven't most people over the last four years :) An economist who stays quiet is a dangerous sign, even more so if he's also the PM. His adversary and the fat book autobiographer was much more vocal today. Though, unlike the Advani we know, he made two fundamental mistakes. One to say that Pandit Nehru never signed the NPT, how could he when he died in 1964 and the NPT came into existence around 1970.The next was to expose the opportunistic politics of his govt by claiming that the Congress is a destabiliser. Pranab da cashed in well on these two and in true Bengali mishti style, drove home these two hard hitting points during his speech. The opposition b...